Share This Story!

Disfigured by war, veteran now says 'I found my place'

Ronny "Tony" Porta was searching for a place where people could see past the disfigurement left by war, where cruel mutterings like "monster" or unfeeling questions about whether such wounds were "worth it" did not exist.

LOVETTSVILLE, Va. — Ronny "Tony" Porta was searching for a place where people could see past the disfigurement left by war, where cruel mutterings about his appearance or unfeeling questions about whether such wounds were "worth it" did not exist.

More than two years later, Porta says, "I found my place."

Porta, 28, a medically retired Marine corporal, stumbled upon this northernmost Virginia village in the windy, rolling countryside 55 miles from the nation's capital nearly two years ago. His head, face and much of his body were horribly scarred by a fiery roadside bomb attack in Iraq in 2007 that killed two other Marines. He lost his right arm and was left with only a few gnarled fingers on his left hand.

But in Lovettsville, Porta has been embraced without reservation.

The pinnacle of acceptance comes this Fourth of July weekend as Porta, his wife, son and mother settle into a state-of-the-art "smart" home built by grateful donors on a hill just outside the town limits. "I found the place where I want to spend the rest of my life," he said Wednesday as he watched the finishing touches put to his new home.

A town procession of a color guard, motorcycle escort and local dignitaries formally delievered Porta and his family to the doorstep of his new house Friday from another he's rented in Lovettsville since 2013. "It's become obviously a major event," said Mike Chapman, sheriff of surrounding Loudoun County, who plans to ride his motorcycle. "Everybody jumped on board."

Lovettsville Mayor Robert Zoldos heralded the celebration for "our adopted hometown hero" in his newsletter.

Before settling in this town, Porta's struggle to re-integrate into American society was emblematic of thousands of scorched, dismembered or emotionally distressed veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars returning to a country where only a tiny fraction of the population has personal experience with the military. Surveys showed an empathy gap separating most of the nation's residents from those who serve in uniform.

When Porta first looked at his reflection four months after the 2007 explosion, he said "I couldn't see myself. I thought, 'Who's going to love me now?' "

He found love and marriage in the years that followed, but after he left hospital care and began living in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, his appearance left him feeling alienated, Porta said.

Children would point and stare, couples would whisper behind his back, teenagers mocked him with the word "monster" and one man asked whether the war wounds had been "worth it." That last incident angered Porta more than the others. "Freedom is not free," he said in a 2013 interview with USA TODAY.

The experiences were so upsetting that Porta found he needed Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, before simply going to the grocery store.

United States Marine veteran Tony Porta, his wife, Deicy, and his mother, Eva (back), watch Kenneth Charles, 3, bounce on the bed of their new "smart" home.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)

His dream, he said back then, was to a find a place where his appearance wouldn't matter. Exploring the Virginia countryside, he and his wife, Deicy (pronounced Daisy), stumbled onto Lovettsville, stopping at a 7-Eleven, the only store in town, for a cold drink.

They loved the feel of the place and as they returned over the months that followed, eventually renting a home, word spread about Porta and the story behind his wounds. The town of fewer than 2,000 people, many of them commuters who cross the nearby Potomac River to travel by train to work in the nation's capital, wholly accepted him.

"All the people know my husband," said Deicy Porta. "We love this place because of the people."

"It was the small community I was looking for," Tony Porta said.

His son, Kenneth Charles Porta, now 3 — named after the two Marines who died in the blast that burned him — began attending a local pre-school where the children seemed more well-versed on what had happened to Tony.

"Children here are amazing," he said. "It's a lot different when children know what happened to you. When I go to the store and there could be many children, they're really polite. They know what happened to me. So they are not afraid of me like in many places where I go (that are) away from this community."

"I can tell you how I introduced him to my (14-year-old son)," said Zoldos the mayor, who also is a deputy fire chief in nearby Fairfax County. "I said 'Hey, son, this guy went to serve his country and he got hurt. He went there to protect the U.S.' I think a lot of kids in the area definitely get that."

Before long, Tony, Deicy, Kenneth Charles, and Tony's mother, Eva, who lives with them, blended in at village events such as monthly outdoor movies on the town green and parades featuring synchronized lawn-mower teams or children on garishly decorated bicycles.

Building a 'smart' home

The non-profit Semper Fi fund, which works to assist wounded Marines, approached Frank Siller, chairman of the New York-based Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation about building a home for Porta in Lovettsville.

The organization was created to honor Frank Siller's younger brother, Stephen, a New York firefighter who raced through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the World Trade Center on 9/11 and died in the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Most of the organization's mission is to build smart homes for catastrophically wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The group broke ground in Lovettsville for Porta about a year ago.

The 2,800-square-foot, fully furnished home is custom built with motorized doors, blinds, cabinets and kitchen sink and stove. It has temperature control for individual rooms, stress-relieving music, automated toilets, a back-up generator, phones everywhere so Porta can make calls more easily and a perimeter surveillance system.

Everything is controlled by an iPad.

Tunnel to Towers Foundation hopes to have finished 30 custom-made homes for veterans this year, Frank Siller said. "Our mission is to make sure we never forget. What better way than to do something positive, to build homes for guys who go to war," he said.

Porta brought his family to see the finished home Wednesday for the first time. Deicy and Eva both were brought to tears as they wound their way through the broad, wheel-chair accessible hallways. Deicy Porta called it overwhelming.

"After I got injured," Tony Porta said, "I was told by a doctor to enjoy life. And this is what I'm planning to do — enjoy life and spend as much time as I can with my wife and son."

Zoldos, the Lovettsville mayor, said he knows Tunnel to Towers Foundation would have built the home for Porta anywhere the retired Marine wanted to live. "I love the fact that he wanted to stay here," he said. "I think that means a lot to the community."